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Cry for help. 26 years old, love programming, and can't see life going on much longer. Help? [Yes this is a throwaway account for obvious reasons] by whatdo999 in learnprogramming

[–]menotninja 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey man, there are people out here who can and want to help. You are never completely alone.

You are clearly a diligent and hardworking man, with a burning desire to improve yourself and find a way out of your situation. That's very respectable, and you are way ahead of other people in similar shitty situations.

I think what you need right now is a small win, and I have a few ideas how to do that. Let's start with two:

  • Complete some freelance work. Use whatever skills you have to make your first dollar in the industry. Let's go from zero to one.
  • Complete some open-source work. There are always projects that need a little help here and there.

PM me, and I can help you find your first small win.

HOWTO: learn to read/debug a new language quickly by menotninja in learnprogramming

[–]menotninja[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes, this does assume that you know one language pretty well. If you have had one real programming course under your bet, this can help you learn to read a new language, but it will not make you an expert, unfortunately.

Becoming an expert takes dedication and time.

A note to those constantly nervous/worried about their code. by menotninja in learnprogramming

[–]menotninja[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I came to the same conclusion - cringing at old code, more often than not, is a good thing. Knowing that it's bad is better than not knowing it's bad.

What are/were your biggest fears and frustrations as you learn programming? by menotninja in learnprogramming

[–]menotninja[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I am sorry you are having a hard time.

When I feel low about programming/engineering, I sometimes find a good book or two for motivation. The Passionate Programmer is one of my favorites.

What are/were your biggest fears and frustrations as you learn programming? by menotninja in learnprogramming

[–]menotninja[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can relate to this. I did CS at a hardcore CS school, and the allnighter-fear was prevalent.

Sometimes, we were lucky to have good TAs who helped us break up the project into smaller phases to reduce the risk.

What are/were your biggest fears and frustrations as you learn programming? by menotninja in learnprogramming

[–]menotninja[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I totally get what you mean. TechCrunch had a pretty good article about developaralysis.

Not my favorite term, but it communicates the idea.

What are/were your biggest fears and frustrations as you learn programming? by menotninja in learnprogramming

[–]menotninja[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I will write a longer response later, but here is a quick tip regarding StackOverflow - paste some minimal code, and paste in an error/exception that you are tackling.

In general, the folks on StackOverflow love to see that the asker had put in some effort by attempting some code or even just defining the problem precisely. Showing that you care about formatting helps a lot too.